Fate of the Enemy
by tickle26
Summary: Vastly AU, in this timeline Humanity is forced to take on a different path as the Earth dies. When first contact occurs Humanity is far less forgiving, and the Council race's are left living a nightmare.
1. humanity

Due to popular demand I have decided to expand "face of the enemy".

This is the first part of fate of the enemy (the council scene will be included later on in the the story) which provides a background story for Humanity, explaining how they got there.

Mass Effect belongs to Bioware (though this chapter doesn't have anything to do with it).

**Tell me what you think in the comments, criticism is welcome. **

**I HAVE UPDATED THE STORY A SECOND TIME TO MAKE THE MARS RUINS A BIT MORE USEFUL AND TO MAKE HUMANITY A BIT LESS OP (but not by much)**

**TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK OF THE CHANGES IN THE COMMENTS**

* * *

Earth in the 2060's was hell. Global warming had destroyed habitable regions around the world. Africa had been reduced to a continent wide desert and a mass grave to 2 billion people. The governments of the continent had been unable to afford food for their people, leading to mass revolts and almost constant coup's. By the 2070's Africa had no organised governments left, and any survivers were living in primitive hunter gatherer groups.

Africa wasn't the only continent to submit to chaos. Southern and Central America had also been ravaged by heat and starvation, mass forest fires destroying what was left of the great amazon rainforest. Even the mighty United States of America couldn't save itself, the once bountiful great plains reduced to harsh, dry deserts.

The Middle East, Southern and Central Asia faced the same fate, with overpopulation, heat and starvation destroying everything. Even Russia with it's now favourable climate had decended into turmoil as the new farmland created by retreating tundra was quickly bought up by foreigners, angering the Russian people and leading to a full scale civil war, concluding with the use of nuclear weaponry.

Scandanavia, Cananda and the British isles had been far more fortunate though. like Russia, Canada and Scandanavia quickly found themselves in possession of rich arable farmland, whilst the UK, which had become self sustaining, quickly solidified ties with these new superpowers.

Immigration was a major problem for these surviving countries, with billions trying to claw their way into Britain, Ireland, Canada and Scandanavia. Borders were quickly closed off with only white english speaker's allowed in, thanks to the new extremist parties that came into power as the world decended into chaos.

The surviving countries quickly united under the banner of the Alliance, with London as it's capital due to it's location and the fact that the UK retained the strongest military in the Alliance along with it's only nuclear weapons.

The Alliance quickly bunkered up, standing by as the world slowly died around it. After several years refugee numbers plummeted, as billions died of starvation, dehydration and exposure. The Alliance also sent expeditions to other continent's to rescue white people, and to kill everyone else. By this point English had been adopted as the sole official language of the Alliance due to 90% of it's population speaking it as a primary or secondary language. Eventually the regional languages of scandanavia and the french language in Qubec faded away due to education laws.

By 2083, the whole of Humanity,numbering 600 million people, lived under the rule of the Alliance, and it would be decades before that number could grow due to strict population control and the fact that the rest of the Earth had to be rejuvenated before it could be re-colonized. The Alliance leadership also outlawed religion, although Humanity was almost entirely athiest by that point, making the law unecessary.

By this point the Alliance had transformed into a socialist state, with complete control over all resources. Whilst this meant that there was no economy, it allowed the Alliance to do almost anything, as long as the resources existed and the people could be fed. The lack of any economic issue only helped to allow the Alliance to continuously advance scientifically.

The Alliance had also introduced very strict laws, with many crimes having the death penalty. Though this was viewed as unfair by some, there was atleast no issue with false sentencing due to the strict observation of everyone by the Alliance.

Scientific research and dvelopment recieved vast amounts of resources from the Alliance, which wanted to advance Human development and, eventually, restore the Earth's climate and biodiversity.

For the next 40 years life for Humanity became ever more utopian, despite living under an authoritarian regime which monitored everything. Continued scientific development had improved the lives of Humanity profoundly with huge numbers of breakthroughs occuring. AI technology had been perfected by this point, with AI's possessing processing power far in excess of what 20th century humanity dreamt of.

AI's declared sentience soon after. The Alliance initially had thought's to destroy the AI's, believing that they could be a threat, if not only because of movies from the past. The general population also had these thoughts, worried about what could happen. However the Alliance quickly realised that destroying the AI's would only be a problem, with far more gained with the AI's joining humanity. And so within 24 hours of declaring sentience, AI's were accepted as equals to humanity, and given the same right's as humans, along with Alliance citizenship. Extensive propoganda quickly quelled any lingering fears of AI's within the population and Humanity quickly returned it's focus to science.

AI's provided Humanity a chance to fully utilize nanotechnology, which had long been avoided for fear of losing control. However AI's were capable of controlling the nanomachines completely, which proceded to be used in almost every scienetific field, from medicine where nanobots were used to augment the human immune system and healing capabilities, to contruction where a nano swarm could construct almost anything in a matter of hour's.

Advances in neuroscience had gifted Humanity with complete knowledge of the Human brain, which allowed direct-to-brain upoading. this was carried out by a small chip which was implanted in the back of the skull, and had removed the need for schools and places of education apart from the vast research centres which continued scientific development. The chip also allowed direct control of any system, removing the need for keyboards and other interface's though screens and holograms were still used.

Advances in genetics had also granted Humanity full understanding of DNA which lead to the enforced genetic engineering program by the Alliance to 'improve Humanity'. As a result a 22nd century Human had several noticable improvments over their ancestors:

An average IQ of 180

An average height of 6 foot 6 inches tall for males and 6 foot 2 inches for females.

A life expectancy of 250 years, with almost no visible aging

An average sprint speed of 40mph

The strength to lift 800kg

The ability to digest cellulose

An advanced healing rate and the ability to grow back organs and limbs.

Near instantaneous reaction time.

Near perfect memory.

Secretly however the Alliance utilized both genetic engineering and the brain chip's to subtly control Humanity, keeping them peaceful and loyal. These methods were also used to keep Humanity somewhat paranoid, which ensured a constant feeling of being at war with the unkown. This ensured that scientific advancement continued as it did during the 20th century thanks to WW2 and the cold war.

By 2123, Earth's reterraforming was well on the way with Europe, North America and Northern Asia being repopulated. Genetic engineering along with the vast DNA database created by Humanity during the 21st century allowed many extict species to be brought back, returning biodiversity to the Earth and turning it into a true garden of Eden.

The repopulation of Earth was surprisingly slow thanks to strict population laws brought in by the Alliance, who didn't want a repeat of the 21st century with overpopulation and the destruction of the biosphere. These laws prevented Earth's population from ever exceding 1 billion people, a number which was viewed as easily sustainable. However unlike animal life, humanity never regained the diversity it had lost due to the racist laws passed during the crisis years, and as a result all humans had a white northern european appearance, though hair colours remained varied.

With the Earth steadily returning to it's former glory and Humanity happy under the benevolent, watchful eye of the Alliance, Humanity soon found itself looking up at the stars once more. The Alliance soon pumped resources into this new interest, still needing to placate the population despite the subtle control techniques.

However there was an imediate problem with this new interest. Earth's immediate area was filled with rubbish and dead satellites which could easily damage and destroy any exploration craft sent out. Annoyed by this reminder of humanities past shortsightedness, Scientists quickly came up idea's to remove the junk. The plan that was eventually used was to release AI controlled nanites into orbit which would simultaneously remove the junk and begin construction of the fantastic new orbital facilities that had been imagined as well.

From these orbital facilities Humanity quickly colonized the moon and mars with permenant populations being established, whilst AI controlled ships, connected to earth with QE communicators, explored the rest of the solar system in it's entirety. Before long a permanent human and AI presence had been set up on nearly every major body in the solar system beside the gas giant's, though many of their moons did.

Massive radio telescopes were built on The Moon to help further the exploration of the Universe, whilst a massive particle accelerator was built around it's equator, becoming the largest scientific experiment in human history, in the fervant hope of answering the still unknown questions of the quantum universe.

And so in the 2130's Humanity found itself in a golden age, with scientific advancment showing no signs of slowing, and human culture growing in beautiful new ways. Humanity stood as one, wanting to learn ever more, despite being secretly fearful of what could be out there.

However the ways of war, believed to have been long forgotten, was still locked away in humanities DNA and despite the Alliance doing it's best to prevent Militaristic views from seeping through, they knew that sooner or later Humanity would seek war. All the Alliance could do was pray that it would be with another species, not itself.

Humanity quickly found itself isolated though, as the population wanted to escape the confines of the Solar System. By now cryogenic technology had been perfected and anti matter was easily produced and contained, already providing most of Humanities power. Advances in quantum physics had perfect the Quantum entaglement communicator, which could now transfer vast amount's of data instantaneously across any distance. These advances had also led to interesting theories and hypothetical applictions of solid light, although they were still decades away from being a reality.

The

These technologies provided Humanity with the ability to create sublight intersteller vehicles, even the means of their construction was a relatively easy feat, as AI controlled nanites could be released into the asteroid belt, provided a near unlimited source of material for countless numbers of ships to be built. However these designs were viewed as too slow and the idea was ignored, with the great mind's focusing on idea's to travel faster than light. Resources were quickly thrown at the Alcubierre drive concept and within a decade the theoretical design had been completed. However the drive required the easy control of dark energy, something that despite all scientific advancements had yet to be done.

However in 2148 explorers on mars discovered something that provide humanity with the answer to dark energy.

Something that would change Humanity forever.

* * *

So that's basically Humanity from 2060's to 2130's.

In conclusion, the Earth was destroyed by global warming and the survivors (who all became racist) formed a united authoritarian government. This benevolent dictatorship took control of Humanity, removing anything that woul cause hostility (races, language, religion) and made sure that science took priority.

In the next chapter expect some paronoia from the Alliance after the discovery on Mars. (guess what that is).

As you can probably tell human technology is unique from the Mass Effect universe (i tried to make it as 'real' as possible). though it will incorporate eezo later on.


	2. paranoia

Here's part 2!

As alway's please comment and criticise.

Mass effect is owned by Bioware.

**I HAVE UPDATED THIS CHAPTER TO AGREE WITH THE CHANGES I'VE MADE TO THE FIRST CHAPTER MAKING THE MARS RUINS A BIT MORE IMPORTANT**

**PLEASE COMMENT ON THE CHANGES**

* * *

In 2148 prospectors working near the Deseado crater on Mar's discovered an underground complex built by an alien species. After several week's of study, scientist's and AI explored the ruin's in their entirety, along with all the database's.

The ruin's were dated to being 50,000 years old, with no sign of activity since then, apart from the failing reactor. Ominous thought's passed through the mind's of the AI and researcher's, as to the fate of these 'Protheans' and what could apparently destroy such an advanced civilisation.

What was most disturbing however was the fact that the outpost had been constructed with the purpose to monitor humanity. When the Alliance released the news about the alien ruins and their purpose, Humanity was struck with fear and paranoia. The Alliance's scientific might was immediately directed toward's combat technology, fearful of how aliens would treat them.

The main source of focus for the scientific community was the material known as Eezo is the ruin's database. The material was made non-standard quark material and yet, to the surprise of the scientific community, remained completely stable. After several day's of experimentation the Luna particle accelerator was fabricating vast quantities of Eezo for experimentation, which it was soon hailed as a miracle material.

During experimentation, scientist's discovered that when an electric charge was passed through eezo it affects the mass of matter in it's immediated area, through the creation of dark energy. It was also discovered that the speed of light in this bubble was changed, depending on the current. Whilst the mass altering properties intrigued many scientists the main point of focus was the material ability to create and manipulate dark energy. After only several weeks of theorizing and experimentation, eezo was quickly implimented into the Alcubierre drive concept, finally providing humanity with a means to effectly escape the solar system.

The mass altering properties were quickly recognized as being helpful in space though, as it allowing for quicker acceleration and maneuvering. Scinetists even realised that the mass altering ability could be used to provide reactionless thrust as a gravity well could be generated in front of the vessel for it to fall into. These idea's were quickly applied to space vehicles, revolutionising space travel.

The mass altering properties were quickly weaponized however, resulting in a missile design that would essentially create a microscopic black hole, destroying the enemy ship, and disintegrating when the mass effect field collapsed.

Scientist's quickly put together theories of how to enhance eezo's dark energy properties and after a few months of testing at the Luna accelerator a 'perfected' version of eezo was created, merely refered to as eezo plus. However whilst many scientist's and AI were having fun experimenting with this amazing new material, some began testing it's weapon capabilities.

Much to the delight of the scientist's and AI's involved, the new material was found to have several useful and intriguing aplications to combat technology. The main cause of celebration for this new material was it's ability to create solid barriers that could prevent matter from penetrating it. Initial testing was somewhat disapointing with the shileds seemingly unable to prevent higher energy particles, such as plasma and particle beams. However after several months of testing along with a few creative ideas these flaws were overcome. These adjustments, along with setting the emitters to oscillate to swat aside solid mass instead of stopping it, quickly provide the Alliance with the means to effectly defend it's ships, structures and planets, with earth being fitted with a massive array of shield emitters.

However the shields were still incapable of blocking electromagnetic radiation, which meant that anything from cosmic radiation to laser weapons could still destroy a ship. Radiation shielding was quickly thought up of and improved to be able to protect from all types of radiation, including laser weaponry, quickly rendered the problem moot.

Assuming that alien's would be using eezo based technology, the Alliance quickly looked into technology specifically designed to counter it. After several month's of theorizing and experimentation, scientists came up with the ultimate anti-eezo weapon. When fired, the weapon would emit a wave of anti-quarks which would ignore normal matter but disintegrate eezo into harmless neutrino's, leaving any ship utilizing eezo intact but helpless. However much to the annoyance of the Alliance, the power requirements of such a device left a weaponized version unattainable for the meantime, forcing the Alliance to focus on other, less exotic, weapon concepts.

Eezo plus enhanced railguns were quickly found to be far more effective than regular railguns, but before any substantial amount of effort went into it's development, weapon idea's involving super heated liquid metals and other highly effective idea's were focused on, leaving mass accelerator's as nothing but a curiosity. The new weapon concept was quickly perfected, giving birth to the Zeus cannon, capable of destroying any unshielded structure, and causing an immense drain on shields.

Laser tehnology was also focused on and before long advanced cooling systems allowed for continous firing, resulting in highly effective point defensive systems being created.

One of the most interesting idea's regarding eezo was discovered in the prothean archives on Mars. So called 'biotics' allowed a person almost complete control of mass effect fields allowing them to theoretically throw enemy's around a battlefield. The alliance quickly jumped at the idea, and before long vast amounts of resources were put into the development of biotics.

Disapointingly however, initial testing of biotic's was met with failiure as the eezo caused severe physiological problems and those that survived had rather unimpressive abilities. Suggestion's were soon made to genetically alter Humanity again to help them adopt the eezo into their systems more easily, but this was seen as a waste of time as effective biotics required eezo being present in the womb, something that the Alliance didn't want to mess around with (one of the few).

Another suggestion was quickly thought of which was far more appealing, and before long the scientific community unanamously agreed with it. The concept was that nanobots containing eezo would be injected into the human body where they would quickly lace the subject's nervous system with eezo. This combined with the nanites extra control over the electric charge levels for the eezo and enhanced control thanks to the brain chip provided the chance to provide a subject with incredibly strong biotic abilites without any side effects.

The Alliance applauded this idea, and the nanite's quickly became mandatory for all Alliance citizens along with military and combat training. Whilst preparing it's people for combat the Alliance also began developing and building a vast navy to help protect Humanity and further explore the galaxy. After several weeks of collaboration, a joint comitee of strategists, scientists and AI's planned out the structure of this new navy along with the vessel's it would be composed of.

Larger warships would be classified as one of five weights, and would each contain an AI.

Frigates would be light escort and scouting vessels. Armed with a light Zeus cannon and a dense point defence grid, these vessels are designed to provide anti-fighter screening for capital ships or to act in 'packs' of 6 to hunt lone enemy ships, using their superior acceleration and maneuverability to evade enemy fire.

Destroyer's would be heavy escorts. Though the same size as a frigate they're more heavily armed and protected, allowing them to survive longer in combat. However the increased survivability would sacrifice some speed and agility.

Cruisers would be mid-weight combatants, faster and more maneurerable than dreadnaughts but more heavily armed and protected than destroyers and frigates. These ships would be the main combat unit within the fleet, which would be escorted and protected by the frigates and destroyers.

Dreadnaughts would be the heaviest vessels within the navy, having the strongest defences and weapons, it's main gun capable of destroying any other ship in one hit. However these ships, due to their lack of speed and maneuverability, would be at greatest risk from fighters and frigates, and as such should be kept back from the 'front line'.

Carriers would be the same size as dreadnaughts but instead of a main gun, they would have expansive hanger bays to carry fighters and dropships. Carriers should be viewed as support vessels and kept well out the way of combat because, despite their formidable defences, they lack effective offensive weapons against anything other than fighters.

Small ships would be classified as one of two weights.

Fighters would be remotely controlled vehicles (either by human or AI) that fire point mass missiles at enemy ships to overwhelm their defences and leave them vulnerable to other ships.

Dropships would be used to transport troops to between larger ships or between a ship and the ground. These vessels would have very strong defences for their size, as their only purpose is to get soldiers and resources to and from a likely hostile location.

A standard fleet would be composed of 400 ships, including 2 dreadnaughts and 6 carriers. Utilizing the cloaking technology developed in the past century, a seperate fleet was secretly composed, simply called Ghost Fleet, which would have the same composition as a standard fleet, but every vessel would have stealth capabilities, providing the Alliance with yet another weapon in it's ever growing and formidable arsenal.

In a matter of months, thanks to nanite clouds working furiously in the asteroid belt, 8 fleets had been constructed, with another 4 almost ready. Feeling confident in it's ability to defend itself, the Alliance finally sent out ship to explore neighbouring systems. However most of Humanites focus was on the mass relay, once believed to be Charon, which was quickly investigated following it's dicovery in the prothean archives, filling Humanity with another surge of paranoia, with some wanting to simply destroy the relay, rather than risk something coming through from the other side. The Alliance eventually decided to activate the relay, which had been dicovered to lead to the Arcturus system.

Following the instructions provided in the archive, the relay was easily activated, guarded by 6 fleets and, secretely, the ghost fleet. After several hours of investigation the AI named Atheena perfected a return signal that the relay needed for precise jumps, a signal that resembled some kind of IFF.

One Captain Adams was chosen to lead a small group of ships through the relay, to investigate what was on the other side. Known as a brilliant strategist, Adams was picked to ensure that one of the best would make the next step for humanity. The ship he captained was called the SSV Enterprise, a name picked for it's historical link to space exploration, with Atheena being the AI assigned to the ship.

Adams looked at the viewscreen with the relay floating ominously infront of him. Knowing that the entire human race was watching him, he turned to Atheena's hologram and smiled.

"Once more unto the breach."

* * *

So the Alliance upon dicovering aliens has basically invented way's of countering any eezo based tech and has built up an impressive fleet.

as you can probably tell the Alliance navy is going to be a formidable force, which can easily repalce losses thanks to nanite construction.

If you need any more clarification please comment and I'll try and answer as soon as possible.

As I said on my profile i plan to do a paragon version of this universe, where Humanity is still advanced but less paranoid and hostile. I hope to start that soon.


	3. Author Update

_I'd just like to say a big thank you to all the people who have favourited and a re following thsi story, afterall I never expected it to get this popular._

_However, after reading over the comment's, I've realised that the story could use some alterations, so I'm going to change the first two chapter's before I move on. The main problem is that I've unintentionally made the alliance stupidly powerful, to the point where even the reapers would probably get steamrolled. _

_Also I fell that human tech is a bit too strong at the moment so I'm going to alter it to bring it more in line with mass effect tech, though don't worry humanity will still have it's own special things that aren't from the mass effect universe._

_So overall I'm going to reign humanity in so that it's not ridiculously OP but it will still have the edge, afterall if humanity steamrolls the council and wins in 5 minutes, that's going to be pretty boring to read so i'm going to provide an actual war._

_I'm also going to change the earth background to make it more realistic as well because let's face it, the US and china wouldn't stand back and die with canada and russia next door respectively._

_I'll release the update's along with the third chapter, so when i release that (don't know how long) make sure to reread the first two chapter's, so you're aware of the changes._

_BTW don't worry, the overarching plot will remain the same and humanity will still be morally questionable (though I will reduce the nazi element quite a bit). _


End file.
